Members of the Alabama National Guard escort the Scottsboro Boys into the Morgan County Courthouse in this 1933 photo. / AP file photo

by Brian Lyman, The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser

by Brian Lyman, The Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A bill is headed to Alabama's governor Thursday that would pardon the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teenagers falsely accused of raping two white women in 1931.

The legislation, presented to the Alabama House on the 45th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., passed 103-0 amid applause in the chamber. The legislation goes to Gov. Robert Bentley, who has indicated support for the measure.

The state Senate already had passed the measure unanimously.

Rep. Laura Hall, a Democrat from Huntsville, Ala., who shepherded the legislation in the House, noted the anniversary in her comments on the bill and said the legislation "would be one small thing to change image in Alabama."

The bill would allow the state Board of Pardons and Paroles to pardon the accused posthumously, establishing a pardons process for deceased individuals convicted of Class A or B felonies that took place before 1932 and whose pardon would "remedy social injustice based on racial discrimination."

Clarence Norris, the last of the Scottsboro Boys, died in 1989. Norris received a pardon from Gov. George Wallace in 1976. He was the only one of the nine accused teenagers to receive a pardon in his lifetime.

An all-white jury convicted the youths more than 80 years ago during a racially charged trial in Scottsboro, Ala. All but the youngest initially received a death sentence but later won new trials.

In a session marked by anger over the passage of a tuition tax credit bill and sharp divisions between majority Republicans and Democrats, the Scottsboro Boys bill was notable for passing with overwhelming support and minimal debate. Many members echoed Hall in hoping that the legislation would do something to improve the national image of Alabama.

"Maybe this will be a happy ending to a lot of bad movies about our state," said GOP Rep. Jim Patterson of Meridianville, Ala.

Rep. John Robinson, a Scottsboro Democrat who worked with Wallace in the 1970s to win Norris' pardon, called the convictions of the teenagers "a miscarriage of justice to the worst degree you can possibly imagine."

"A lot of people in Scottsboro will be glad this is over with and that we're getting this thing done," he said. "It is never to late to do the right thing."